


Forget Me Not

by Kenda1L



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alien World Building, Amnesia, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Injury, Body Horror, Hanahaki Disease, It Is Hanahaki After All, Like Pretty Graphic So Be Warned, M/M, Melancholy, Mentions Of Curtis - Freeform, No Character Death, Post-Canon, Rating Is Due To The Body Horror, SHEITH - Freeform, Season 8 compliant, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:35:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22533334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kenda1L/pseuds/Kenda1L
Summary: He is in love with someone he can’t remember, and it’s killing him.When a man crash lands on a small, lonely planet, he finds himself without memory of where he was going, where he’s from, or even who he is. He soon finds he has landed on Hanahaki Gardens—a planet dedicated to providing a final home for the Unloved who have succumbed to their flowers. By chance or fate, it ends up being exactly the right place for him. He may not remember his past, but the flowers inside him are taking over regardless. Here, he is known only as Kuro, for the color of the flowers that grow within. Resigned to his fate, he settles  in, content to tend the gardens until he joins them.His complacency is soon interrupted by the arrival of a traveler named Keith, who is looking for someone dear to him and seems oddly convinced that Kuro is the only one who can find him.
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 39
Kudos: 120
Collections: VLD Hanahaki Bang





	Forget Me Not

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the [VLD Hanahaki Bang.](https://twitter.com/VHanahaki) I knew very little about the Hanahaki trope when I first started this fic, so participating in this bang has been such a fun learning experience. My artist, [Francowitch](https://twitter.com/francowitch) was such a pleasure to work with. Every time I see the [art](https://twitter.com/francowitch/status/1228360221397000194?s=20) she created, I fall in love with it a little more! Please make sure to give her tons of love too!
> 
> Also, special thanks to [Maevewren](https://archiveofourown.org/users/maevewren/pseuds/maevewren) for helping me to polish this up! Any remaining mistakes are my own.

He is in love with someone he can’t remember, and it’s killing him.

It starts in his belly, curling and squirming like worms in mud. Anxiety feeds the parasitic tendrils that make a trellis of his lungs. At night he lies with knees tight to his chest, wheezing and shuddering as creeping roots tickle and spread through his veins. Pollen itches his nose constantly and his eyes water under the onslaught. 

Morning sun inches, too warm, across his bed and awakens the buds blooming in his throat. He coughs and chokes on razor-edged leaves. A single velvety petal flutters from his mouth and smears blood on the honey oak floor of his small room. He cleans away the evidence and gets on with his life, because there’s nothing else to do.

***

The Caretakers of the Hanahaki Garden call him Kuro, after the scatter of dark petals he leaves in his wake as he tends to the flowery remains of unlucky lovers. He knows no other name, so he lets it plant itself in his mind and nurtures it until he answers without second thought. Not that he hears it often; the others avoid him when possible. He can’t blame them. He’s the only of his kind on the entire planet, without memory and suffering the same affliction of those whose graves they tend. He makes them nervous. He makes himself nervous. 

He weeds and waters, smiles at the rare lonely visitor and tries his best not to cough in their presence. He takes his meals on his own, sipping his vegetable broth slowly and catching his breath on one of the memorial benches. The warmth soothes his scratchy throat while the gentle, ever-present wind shivers through the leaves and cools his perpetually fever-heated skin. 

Sometimes he dreams that his vines light up cool blue and spread like circuitry from his fingertips. 

_(The bridge is yours, Captain.)_

_(Shots incoming!)_

_(The lions aren’t responding. Paladins, come in!)_

He gasps awake with a name on his tongue but it gets caught up in fear and foliage. When he can finally wheeze past the flowers in his throat, the memory has receded again, tangled and hidden in the thicket surrounding his heart. Petals fall faster from his mouth on those days.

Time blurs, marked only by the creeping growth of branches through his body. He’s not… happy, per se, but he’s content. He finds a small plot of land on the sunny side of the planet where the graves bloom with desert flowers, sparse and hardy like the desert roses and succulents that grow within him. This will be where he comes when it’s time to lie down and let his body take root, he decides. The red dirt and desert bluffs call to him. When the fading sunlight turns the landscape to silhouettes, his heart aches.

He spends a lot of time there.

***

“Someone of your species has arrived at the Welcome Center.” 

The head Caretaker’s voice is dry and whispery, nearly overtaken by the nervous song their hind leg plays against their lower wing. Their antennae twitch and he thinks he sees concern in their eyes. He blinks, confused. He knows his kind must be capable of growing flowers, but in all the time he’s been here, he has yet to see someone else like him. 

“I… what?” he asks blankly.

“Someone of your species has arrived,” the Caretaker repeats. “He says he is looking for someone. I thought he might be more comfortable with someone familiar to lead him to his Unloved.”

He takes as deep a breath as he can manage, squeezing his eyes shut when the oxygen sets off a coughing fit. He hacks up a razor-edged bud, swallowing down the copper tang of blood as he sets it down in the red dirt in front of him. He attempts to dust off his knees as he stands, but only succeeds in grinding the stains deeper into his pants. 

“Okay,” he rasps, and lets the Caretaker lead him away from his grave.

***

The man waits near the gift stand, studying the bags of fertilizer with uncommon intensity. He still wears his flight gear, as though he’d been too impatient to change. 

He approaches the man, clasping his hands to hide their sudden tremble. He clears his throat nervously, swallowing down the leaves crowding his esophagus. The man turns quickly, eyes widening as they travel over his face. They’re a bright indigo color, impossible to look away from; it reminds him of the dark succulents and desert roses growing inside him. 

“Shiro,” the man says in an agony-threaded whisper. 

The word echoes in his head, familiar like a forgotten language. Perhaps he spoke it once, but the meaning is long lost to him. He steps back in alarm as the man rushes forward. Whatever the man sees in his face, it stops him dead in his tracks. “Shiro?” he asks again. The sense of familiarity strengthens, but he shakes it off.

“Kuro,” he says. “I’m… you may call me Kuro.” The man’s brow furrows, lips slack with confusion. It quickly morphs and twists into hurt. His breath catches and his eyes squeeze shut before he covers them with a hand. 

He watches the man struggle silently; the urge to pull him close is nearly overwhelming. His stomach rumbles and aches, distending as thick roots and branches shift and grow. He turns away to cough into his hand, surreptitiously wiping the sheen of blood from his lips and hiding the flower petal in his pocket. 

When he turns back, the man has regained control. “Kuro, right.” He smiles weakly and holds out one hand. “I’m Keith. It’s nice to meet you.” 

He hesitates before holding out his own hand, but pulls it back quickly when Keith inhales sharply at the sight of veins bulging with thin tendrils. “Oh,” Keith says softly, voice breaking under the weight of devastation. He puts his hand back in his pocket and crushes the petal. “Shit, I… sorry,” Keith says with a wince.

He isn’t sure if Keith is apologizing for his reaction or expressing sympathy, but either way he keeps his hand firmly in his pocket. He offers Keith an understanding smile, licking any traces of blood from his gums and teeth before saying, “It’s okay, I understand. It can be quite distressing when you aren’t used to it. It’s why I don’t usually guide visitors.”

“No!” Keith says quickly. “I’m. I’m really glad you’re here.” His earnestness is too much for the situation. It makes him uneasy. He turns his gaze toward the large window that looks out over the Garden, rocking on his heels a little.

“So, you’ve come to visit someone?” he asks.

Keith drops his head, strands of dark hair falling free from his messy ponytail and obscuring his expression. “Yes,” he says lowly. “I’m looking for someone.”

“Do you know what section they grow in?”

Keith rolls his lips inward and shakes his head, not taking his eyes off of him. “No. I didn’t know he was here until recently.”

He hums thoughtfully. “Okay. What’s his name? I can look him up in the database.” He leads Keith over to the small desk that holds the directory of Unloved growing in the Garden. 

“Takashi,” Keith says, soft and sad. “Takashi Shirogane.” 

He hesitates, fingers stalling as images flicker at the edges of his mind. They disappear before he can catch hold and examine them, so he rolls his shoulders and pulls up the database to type in the name. The search comes back with zero results. He frowns and looks up at Keith, only to find him staring at him the way a man dying of thirst stares at an oasis, unsure if what he’s seeing is mirage or salvation. It makes the fever under his skin flare. “Um. There’s no one by that name,” he says, shifting uncomfortably. “Are you sure he’s here?” 

Keith blinks, coming out of his trance. “Yes, I’m sure,” he says firmly. 

He bites his lip, thinking. “Is it possible he’s here under a different name?” he offers. 

Keith scrubs a hand over his face, expression edged with frustration. “Yes. I guess he is.”

He waits for Keith to supply him with another name, but Keith doesn’t speak, just keeps staring at him like he’s the one waiting for something. He’s starting to feel frustrated himself. He stares defiantly back until he can hardly breathe and swallowing no longer keeps the flowers at bay. “Excuse me,” he chokes out. He escapes through the door behind him to the small breakroom there. He leans against the door and coughs until his throat is raw and his chest burns from oxygen loss, blood pulsing and rushing in his ears. He stares at the bouquet of flowers scattered at his feet, trying to catch his breath. Every gasp scrapes his lungs and threatens another coughing fit, but he manages to push it all down. He slides down the door and rests his arm and forehead against his knees. 

“Kuro?” 

He raises his head just enough to see one of the Caretakers in front of him. The symphony of rhythmic whistling he’d been hearing isn’t coming from his own head, he realizes. He peers around him to see two other Caretakers watching him with wide eyes. “Are you okay?” the one in front of him asks.

_No._

“I’ll be okay, Shisho.” He winces as his voice comes out wrecked. He accepts the mug of warmed honey nectar offered, sighing when his throat and stomach go blissfully numb and a quiet calmness settles over him. Shisho must have laced it with some of the medication they offer to the Unloved who wish to stay a while before they Plant. “Thank you.”

“Would you like me to take care of the visitor?”

“No!” The word bursts out of him before he even thinks about it. Shisho hops back, song speeding up as their leg works their wing anxiously. “Sorry. It’s fine, I can do it.” Every part of him rebels at the thought of someone else guiding Keith. He doesn’t know why, but he’s not strong enough to resist it. 

Shisho bobs their head. “Let us know if you need anything.” They rejoin the other Caretakers. He sips his nectar slowly and tries to ignore the glances being thrown his way. When he finishes, he forces himself to his feet and washes out his mug, loitering at the sink until he feels brave enough to leave the break room.

Keith is on him the second he steps out the door, panic in every movement. Keith takes hold of his arm, other hand cool as it carefully cups his cheek. “Are you okay? Are you hurt? I’m sorry if I did something to—”

He cuts Keith off with a hand to his shoulder. “I’m fine,” he reassures him warmly. “Now, what name should I try?” 

Keith’s eyes search his face frantically; for what, he doesn’t know. Whatever it is, Keith doesn’t find it, because he sighs heavily and lets his hands drop to his sides, stepping back. He misses the cool balm of Keith’s palm on his fevered cheek, skin tingling with the loss. 

“I’m not sure yet,” Keith says finally. He taps his fingers against his lips, thinking. It draws his own eyes to the thick scar that starts at Keith’s jaw and arcs nearly to his eye. Formless guilt battles the flowers for space in his chest. Keith could have so easily been blinded, and it’s his fault.

He startles and mentally rewinds. He can’t be responsible for the scars Keith bears, and yet the guilt still weighs heavy on him. Why? Why, why, _why?_ The word echoes in time with his pulse.

“—Kuro?” He snaps back to the present. Keith has been speaking but he’s missed it entirely because he was too busy burying himself in his own thoughts.

“Sorry, what?” he asks, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. There’s a line between Keith’s eyebrows, skin pulled taut around his eyes; it accentuates the fragile, blue-black bags under his eyes and sickly cast to his face. He looks like hell. 

He’s beautiful.

“I asked if you would mind showing me around the Garden. I’ll know him when I see him. I just need to find him.”

He hesitates doubtfully, fiddling with the edge of his uniform tunic. “You do realize how large the Garden is, right? It takes up the entire planet. It will take at least a phoeb to search the entire thing.” He knows this personally; he’s explored every inch of the Garden enough times he’s lost count.

“I have time,” Keith says calmly. 

_I don’t._ The bitter thought sits on his tongue and leaves him surprised. It tastes like leaves, like bark, like grave dirt. It coats his mouth and makes it hard for him to say, “We have rooms reserved for Unloved who aren’t ready to bloom yet. I suppose you can stay in one of them while we look.”

Keith blanches and draws in a shuddering breath, but his shoulders square and he stands a little taller. “Thank you.”

His voice fails to fight its way through the brambles and uneasy anticipation that clog his throat, so he simply nods and gestures for Keith to follow. 

***

Once Keith has settled into his tiny room and changed out of his flight suit, they meet again in the Welcome Center. He offers to take Keith on a tour around the Garden so he can get the lay of the land. “Maybe it will give you an idea of where we should start.” Keith nods silently and follows him out to the hoverbike, but stops short when he sees it. His gaze twists strangely as it flits between him and the bike. 

He hurries to reassure Keith. “No need to worry, they’re very easy to ride. Even a one-armed monkey could drive it and I’m only one of those things.” 

Keith snorts and shakes his head a little. “I trust you.” 

The words do something funny to his heart, and he doesn’t think it has anything to do with the plants coiled around it. He looks away rather than face Keith’s small, sad smile. He swings a leg over the hoverbike and pats the seat behind him. He grunts a little as Keith wraps his arms tightly around his waist. The pressure against the thicket in his stomach is painful, but Keith’s recoil is worse. He grabs hold of Keith’s hand and pulls it back around. “It’s okay. You’ll need to hold on so you don’t fall off.” Keith grumbles but adjusts so he’s a little closer, hands wrapped around the curve of his ribs rather than banding across his belly. He’s a cool line along his back. 

Keith makes a small, surprised sound and cuddles closer. “Warm,” he mumbles, pressing a cheek between his shoulder blades. 

He doesn’t have the heart to explain how his body has become a hothouse for the flowers inside him. “Let me know if you want to stop anywhere,” he says instead, and guns the engine. 

He takes them to the water sector first, skimming over the ponds where cattails and lily pads provide shade for water bugs and small silvery fish. They come close enough to the waterfall to feel its spray on their faces and see the individual leaves of the creeping vines that cling to the surrounding rocks. The prairies are next. The hoverbike’s gravity thrusters make trails through the tall grasses and rustle the petals on the wildflowers. He zips through the forests, weaving in and out of tall trees and thick undergrowth, speeding up when Keith leans into the curves with him like they’ve been flying together their entire lives. The wind whipping against his face makes his eyes tear up and he feels free, rootless with only Keith’s grip keeping him tethered to this world.

He almost misses the sound Keith makes when they reach the desert. If he hadn’t already been slowing to enjoy the familiar sight of red rock, he might not have heard it at all over the sound of the wind. He slows further until they’re moving at a slow, leisurely glide. “Here?” he asks, heart thumping hard for reasons he can’t place. 

“No, I.” He feels the heavy, shuddering breath Keith takes, feels the tickle of his sigh against the small hairs at his neck. “I don’t know. Maybe. This place just reminds me of home.”

He hums, coming to a stop next to some desert scrub. They look out over the wide expanse of land toward the mesas in the distance. “This is my favorite sector,” he tells Keith as he dismounts, kneeling to wipe away some dirt that had blown onto one of the small plaques that hold information on the Unloved planted there.

“Why?” Keith asks. There’s something like longing, or maybe anticipation, in his voice. 

“I just like it. It calls to me. And…” he hesitates, but doesn’t have energy to spare Keith’s feelings. “And my flowers match, so…”

Keith’s face spasms, twists into a rictus of sorrow he hides by turning away quickly. “Oh.” He clears his throat. “So. Any other sectors?” 

He doesn’t protest the change in topic, simply gets back on the bike. “Mountains next.”

They don’t talk about the warm, damp patch that spreads across the back of his shirt where Keith rests his head.

***

He drops the hoverbike off in the garage behind the Welcome Center and then leads Keith along the pathways of the cultivated gardens that surround the center. It’s the most popular sector among the Garden’s visitors. Even those whose Unloved are planted in other sectors tend to spend time here. The flowers are lush and lovely and varied, plants from every corner of the universe growing in harmony. He still prefers the wild beauty of the other sectors. Keith seems to agree because he spends most of the time staring at the dark, shimmery paving stones under their feet, hands shoved deep in his pockets and furrow carved deep between his brows. He’s perfectly content to walk alongside Keith in silence, pausing every once in a while to brush a bug off a leaf or pull a stray kirto weed, one of the few plants indigenous to the Garden.

He slows and stops as the path turns and he sees white ribbons tied to branches and flower stalks. Keith continues a few paces before he realizes he’s walking alone and turns around, head cocked curiously. 

He debates what to tell Keith, chewing idly at the hangnail on his thumb. The truth seems like the best option. “It would be better if we chose a different path. An Unloved recently laid down over there and the sight can be, uh, distressing to those who aren’t used to it.” 

Keith sucks in a breath, eyes widening with understanding before narrowing, resolute. “I want to continue.”

He presses his lips together firmly and shakes his head. “I _really_ suggest we choose a different path,” he says firmly.

Keith crosses his arms mutinously, jaw jutting out. The sight elicits warm exasperation. “I can handle it. I want to see.” 

He pinches the bridge of his nose. “It’s not Takashi, I promise you.”

“ _Shi_ —Kuro. I. Can. Handle it.”

He knows a losing battle when he sees one. It’s not technically against the rules and Keith is far from the first person to request to see a newly planted Unloved. They all react the same. He sighs, muffles the cough it triggers against his sleeve. He doesn’t think he can talk around the petals threatening to come up, so he just gestures down the path. They walk side by side until they come upon the Unloved. Keith stops dead in his tracks.

He sets a gentle hand on Keith’s shoulder briefly, then continues another few steps until he stands next to what remains of the Unloved. “Her name was Caryx, from the planet of Andiirol. She was Unloved by Caessim,” he says quietly, brushing his fingers against the long, purple-red flowers and bright yellow star-shaped leaves bursting from her stomach, slack jaw, and eye sockets. Creepers and vines bind her to the lush dirt. Their orange leaves hide the sight of her decay, while their spicy scent covers the smell. It’s lucky; not all of the flowers that bloom have a scent. “She was a sweet woman. Gentle eyes. A singer before the vines strangled her vocal cords. She brought some recordings with her though. Her voice was beautiful.” He touches her plaque, warm from the dying sun, but doesn’t activate the holographic epitaph. “She was Unloved, but she will not be forgotten.” 

The words roll off his tongue, spoken so many times it’s almost reflex, but the sentiment holds strong. He turns, bracing himself for Keith’s reaction. To his surprise, Keith’s eyes are dry, face carefully blank. Only the rasp in his voice and the carefully relaxed set of his shoulder betray him. “That’s good. No one should be forgotten.”

He swallows hard and looks away from Keith. “I’m sorry, but I’m feeling a little tired. I think I’m going to lay down for a bit before dinner.”

“Are you okay?” 

The concern in Keith’s voice is too much for him. It makes his head swim and his heart sink. He smiles through it. “I’m fine. Do you think you can find your way back to the Center?” 

Keith nods with a frown but says nothing as he turns to go, leaving Keith among the flowers.

***

He sleeps through dinner, wakes at midnight to find a glass of nectar and some soup in a warming crock on his tiny nightstand. He sips the nectar but leaves the soup. He feels full all the time these days. He knows it’s the flowers and leaves filling his stomach and that he still needs sustenance, but he can’t bring himself to care when he’s too busy chasing the ephemeral edges of his dreams. He thinks he sees a face: dark hair, dark skin, dark eyes and dark expression. An even darker petal held limply in one hand. He tries to grasp the image but it crumbles like sun-parched paper and fades away. He sighs and flops back on his bed. When he closes his eyes he sees Keith, but not the Keith he knows. His hair is shorter, skin paler and lacking the faint violet undertones of his Keith. He has no scar. He has no fangs. He still smiles.

He wants to examine the phantom Keith further, but he’s had too much nectar. Sleep drags him under.

***

Keith is sleepy-eyed and moving slow the next morning. He wanders in toward the end of breakfast, ignoring the other Caretakers to plop down in the seat across from himself with a yawn.

“Sleep well?” he asks Keith. He pauses stirring his pseudo-oatmeal to watch the stretch of Keith’s lips as he yawns again. 

Keith grunts, rubbing grit from one eye as he leans his elbows on the table. “Amazing,” he grumbles. “You?”

He snorts. “There’s coffee,” he offers rather than answer. “Or, well, not exactly coffee. But it’s not horrible. Tastes kind of like hazelnut, actually. And it wakes you up.” 

Keith grunts again and stumbles over to the table that holds the morning spread. He forces down another bite of oatmeal, stomach twisting. At this point he’s never sure if it’s hunger or flowers causing the nausea. Or anxiety, he thinks as Keith comes back with a mug and some sort of breakfast sandwich. They sit in companionable quiet broken only by the murmur of the Caretakers. Their vibrating songs create a symphonic background that lulls him even as the coffee drink courses through him and wipes away the last clinging vestiges of dreams. 

There’s a tickle in his throat. He tries to quell it with a bite of oatmeal, but instead he chokes and ends up hacking and coughing as he tries to breathe through it. When his airway finally starts to clear, he becomes aware of a hand on his bicep and another rubbing comforting circles over his back, Keith’s panic-laced voice in his ear. “ _—iro_ c’mon, just breathe, okay? Good, that’s it.”

His face goes hot with embarrassment. “I’m okay,” he wheezes. He clears his throat and repeats it in a slightly stronger voice. “I’m okay.”

“Kuro, are you in need of nectar?” 

He jolts as Shisho’s quiet voice interrupts the moment. The hand on his back slows and disappears. He misses it immediately.

“No, I’m fine,” he reassures the Caretaker with a sheepish smile. “Just swallowed wrong.” Shisho cocks their head, then nods and retreats. The Caretakers don’t speak much, at least not in any language he can understand.

Keith watches them leave, one hand still cool against his bicep. “Crickets,” he mutters absently.

He laughs. It makes his chest tighten, but it’s worth it for Keith’s blush and shy smile. He smiles back as Keith shakes his head ruefully. “I think I need more coffee stuff,” Keith says, tugging at the end of his braid. “You?” He nods and hands Keith his empty mug to refill.

“Is there anywhere you’d like to start today?” he asks once Keith has returned. 

Keith blows steam away thoughtfully. “I saw mountains yesterday,” he says slowly. “They kind of remind me of the ones where Takashi grew up.”

He nods. “We’ll need protective gear. I didn’t take you up yesterday because it gets cold and some of the flora can only live in environments that are toxic to us.”

“My flight suit should take care of both those problems.”

He nods and stands to clear his plates. “Meet back here in fifteen doboshes?” Keith nods, gulping down the last of his drink and gathering up his own plates.

One of the Caretakers stops him on his way back to the Center to press a small vial of nectar into his hand. Annoyance flares red hot behind his eyes. The unspoken assumption rankles; his disease doesn’t make him any less capable. “I don’t need it.”

The Caretaker cocks their head, large black eyes impossible to read. Only their song’s increased volume gives away that they are feeling anything. They continue to hold out the vial quietly until he growls and snatches it out of their hand. He zips it into the pouch at his side. The Caretaker nods to him and retreats as Keith appears. 

“Everything okay?” Keith sets a questioning hand on his shoulder.

“Fine,” he grits out, forcing his body to relax. Keith’s touch helps. “It’s fine,” he repeats in a softer voice. He smiles. “Are you ready to go?”

Keith studies him for a moment, then nods.

It doesn’t take long to get to the mountain region. It doesn’t take very long to get anywhere on this planet, even though it houses close to a million Unloved and has room for at least a million more; it was made small by design so visitors could easily reach their Unloved. When they reach the base of the mountains, they take the hoverbike up the narrow switchback, stopping occasionally when they come upon patches of vegetation. He follows Keith’s wandering trail through the flowers and scrubs, watches as he touches plaques, reading each inscription carefully and studying each hologram before moving on. 

“Are all the plants on this planet from Unloved?” Keith asks eventually. His voice comes warm and intimate through the helmet’s comms receiver. 

He kneels next to Keith and wipes the light dusting of pinkish snow off one plaque before triggering the hologram of a Pylorian who was planted here long, long ago. She has a vaguely grandmotherly look as she smiles kindly and whispers her own epitaph. “Most,” he says, belatedly remembering that Keith had asked a question. “The Caretakers who made Hanahaki Gardens chose to terraform it without any vegetation so they could maximize space, but some still made it through somehow.” He smiles ruefully, fingering one of the teal weeds spreading at the base of the scrubby pink bush in front of them. “Guess you can’t control everything.” He pinches it and pulls, careful of its roots. He notices Keith’s stare and shrugs. “They’d take over completely if they could.”

“So the Caretakers created this place?” They remount the bike. Keith snuggles up behind him, taking full advantage of the extra warmth that emanates even through his suit.

He hums, then clears his throat as the vibration ruffles the leaves trying to take hold. When he can speak, he says, “Yes. They were masters of terraforming and rejuvenating planets. Then they realized that they weren’t the only species vulnerable to the Hanahaki organisms in the pollen from their plants and retreated. The Gardens are kind of like their apology for the mess they created.”

“ _They’re_ the ones who did this?” Keith growls. 

He stiffens. “Unintentionally.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. That totally excuses the fact that they spread an infectious disease across the universe.” Keith’s words are acidic; they eat through the walls keeping his emotions in check. 

He slows the bike as his hand starts to tremble. “People make mistakes,” he says tightly.

“They’ve made—Kuro, they’ve killed _millions of people!_ That’s not a mistake, it’s a massacre!”

“And they’ve been making amends for it for thousands of years,” he snaps. His stomach clenches painfully and his lungs spasm. He retches and hacks violently.

“Shit!” Keith grabs for the handles as he loses control of the bike. They skid to a stop before they go over the mountainside, but he can’t concentrate on their near miss because every cough and gag splatters the inside of his helmet with leaves and petals and blood. He scrabbles for the release valve on his helmet. He can’t breathe. He can’t _breathe._

Hands wrap around his and pry it away. He struggles against it but Keith’s fingers are bands of steel around his wrist. “Shiro, _stop_! We’re still in a toxic zone. If you take that off you’re going to die.”

He’s already dying. He coughs up a full flower. The razor edges of the plump, meaty succulent leaves tear up his throat and mouth. He dribbles blood as it hits the glass of his helmet and slides down to bump his chin. What little oxygen he manages to force through his clogged airway comes out as a low moan and he slumps, too tired to fight.

“Just hold on,” Keith says tightly. He takes hold of the bike’s handles and revs the engine. They take off down the mountain at breakneck speed; the hairpin turns make him dizzy and light-headed, but Keith’s arms and knees surround him and cage him in, keep him from falling. His head lolls as he’s pulled off the bike at the base of the mountain. Keith yanks the helmet off and steadies him as he coughs up a few more petals before settling, exhausted, back against Keith’s chest. Every breath burns his lungs and scrapes against his raw throat, but at least he _can_ breathe again. Keith nudges his elbow with a water bottle. He takes it thankfully, swishing some around his mouth and spitting before chancing a sip. The water cools his throat and helps his stomach settle, but he still digs out the vial of nectar and drinks it as well. The pain recedes, leaving a calm, gentle haze in its place. 

He becomes aware of Keith’s arms cradling him, one hand smoothing bangs off his sweaty forehead. He doesn’t have the strength to pull away and wouldn’t even if he could; Keith's embrace is like a balm for the chaos in his head. 

“Why are you defending the people killing you?” Keith asks, soft and sad. 

He blinks slowly, floating in the nectar’s cloudy warmth. “I’m not,” he finally answers. “The only one killing me is me.” For the first time, the words evoke a hint of sorrow.

Their ride back to the Center is spent in silence.

***

They spend the next day in the desert. Conversation comes easily between them in a way he isn’t used to, at least not within current memory. They don’t talk about what happened the day before; instead, Keith tells him of his travels, light-hearted stories about the people and creatures he’s met and adventures he’s had. “Believe me, trying to convert a group of spies and guerilla warriors into a humanitarian organization was _not_ easy,” he says, voice lit up with laughter. “Porzik was convinced everything was a conspiracy, Zethrid and Ezor just wanted to solve every problem with murder, and watching Kolivan try keep a bunch of Arusian kids occupied while their parents worked on rebuilding…” he shakes his head with a fond smile. 

He can’t help but smile back. The names are vaguely familiar in that ‘ _I think I might have heard about them once’_ sort of way, but he doesn’t bother to ask Keith more about them. It’s unimportant in the long run. “And your Takashi?” he asks. “How did he adapt?”

Keith’s smile drops and he regrets the question immediately. “Takashi stayed on earth,” he says quietly, kicking at a rock.

“He didn’t go with you?” he asks, confused. It’s not the answer he’d been expecting. Keith sighs and veers off to sit on a large sun-warmed rock, drawing his knees to his chest and resting his chin on them. He joins him, close enough to offer comfort but far enough not to intrude.

“He had things tying him to earth,” Keith says, rubbing at his eyes with one hand. “And… we weren’t very close in the end. Things were so crazy for so long, and there was so much between us that we never got the chance to talk about. I thought we were on the same page, but…”

He sets a hand on Keith’s shoulder as his voice breaks. Keith shudders and for a second he thinks he’s going to pull away, but then Keith slumps and leans into his side. He hugs him closer and waits patiently for him to pull himself together. Keith clears his throat and sighs. “He would have come, if I’d asked. I think he would have done a lot of things, if only I asked. But I didn’t because I was too busy convincing myself that he didn’t need me like I needed him anymore. And then he was just... gone. Disappeared. No one knew where he was.” Bitter anger twists his face. “No one was even looking for him anymore, not even the person who was _supposed_ to love him.”

“You did, though,” he says. Keith looks up at him with red, watery eyes. He hugs him a little closer. “You looked for him. And you found him.” Keith squeezes his eyes shut for a moment before he opens them again, fierce determination lighting up his gaze.

“Not yet. But I will. I always do.”

He chuckles. “As many times as it takes, huh?” Keith inhales sharply, staring at him with wide, shocked eyes. He doesn’t understand the look, but it makes him uneasy, like he’s standing on the edge of a cliff with a strong wind at his back, trying to balance and breathe but unable to do either. Rather than examine the feeling, he stands and brushes it off along with the dirt clinging to his pants. “We should probably head back. The Caretakers will be serving dinner soon.” He holds out a hand to Keith. After a moment, Keith takes it and lets himself be pulled to his feet.

“Thank you, Kuro.”

He’s not sure what exactly he’s being thanked for, but he nods and smiles anyway.

***

He spends his days with Keith on the hoverbike, showing him every inch of the Gardens in the hopes of locating Takashi. He spends his nights tangled in sheets and dreams. He never remembers more than flashes when he wakes, amorphous and fleeting, drowning under the sticky sweet weight of nectar. The emotions aren't washed away so easily. Sometimes he wakes with wild joy that leaves him jubilant and grinning when he meets Keith in the cafeteria, bouncing in his seat with eagerness to show off the next hidden spot he'd discovered during his time on the planet. Other days leave him struggling to even get out of bed, wishing to sink down into his covers and let them bury him. It's better than being buried under the crush of sorrow and regret for things he can't remember. It makes him edgy and quiet when he finally does drag himself out of his room. On those days, Keith is quiet too and his presence is like a cool cloth to the feverish, ragged edges of his soul. They sip their coffee drink together, feet shuffled and pressed together under the table in unspoken companionship. 

The Caretakers generally stay out of their way, saying nothing when he shirks his gardening duties in favor of playing guide to Keith. It’s not like he’s technically a Caretaker anyway; he’d just stuck around for so long, refusing to die, that they hadn’t complained when he’d picked up a trowel and started weeding.

Today, they visit the waterfall again. He sits on the edge of the pool it crashes into, brushing his hand over the orange-red algae growing on the pink, granite-like rocks that create the basin. It tickles his palm, gives him something to focus on other than morbid daydreams of wriggling tendrils unfurling and breaking skin as they reach for the mist that comes off the waterfall. He shifts a little further away from the water. 

His movement catches Keith’s eye. He’s been wading in the shallows at the edges of the pond, boots, socks, and jacket carelessly discarded and pants rolled up to keep them from getting wet. It’s a losing battle; the black mud and silt that covers the bottom of the pond is thick and viscous, easy to sink into. He smiles at Keith’s disgusted, delighted cries as he pulls his foot out with a schlurp and wiggles goop covered toes in his direction. 

“Is there a reason you aren’t coming in?” Keith asks, splashing over to him. “Should I be worried about flesh-eating plants or, like, horny tentacle monsters or something?” 

He laughs, shaking his head. “That’s a little more than I ever wanted to know about your Me Time materials,” he teases, and delights when Keith goes a pretty violet-red color. “But no. No tentacle monsters. Or flesh-eating anything, not here, at least. I wouldn’t let you go in if there were.”

“So then join me,” Keith cajoles, holding out a hand. “I know you aren’t allergic to water.” He pauses, smile faltering. “Unless, I mean. Are the, the flowers…”

He puts Keith out of his misery. “I’m fine in water.”

“So come on, then! It’s hot, you’ve got to be uncomfortable. You hate the heat.” 

He frowns, wondering how Keith knows that, but the thought flees his head when Keith wiggles his fingers and whines, “ _Joooin me_!” with wide, imploring eyes. 

He gives in, not that he was resisting too hard to begin with. “Fine, fine.” He tugs his boots off, then hesitates. He usually keeps himself as covered as possible. He doesn’t like to see the changes the flowers have wrought on his body, webbing and protruding under his skin. He can’t imagine anyone else wanting to see it.

At least the scars that criss-cross his body are less noticeable, he thinks wryly.

“Kuro, it’s okay,” Keith says softly, drawing him out of his misery spiral. “Nothing about you will ever scare me away. Or make me pity you,” he continues quickly, cutting off that line of thinking too. He wonders at how quickly Keith has learned to read him. Keith must take his silence for discomfort because he shakes his head with a frown. “Here, look.”

He steps out of the water, shaking droplets off his legs. Keith pulls off the short-sleeved shirt he’s wearing and turns to show his back. 

He swallows back the hurt sound clawing up his throat. Keith is covered in scars, but that’s not what catches his eye. Muted green light glows softly along his back from what looks like twining branches. They're fused to his spine, a living organism pulsing just under his skin, hemmed in by gnarled scars. The thing stretches from midway between his shoulder blades down below the waistline of his pants. It’s not just attached to Keith's spine, he realizes as he leans closer; it’s replaced it completely. “What…” He touches without thinking, fingers faltering against the cool skin. Keith doesn’t pull away so he traces a pathway up his back. Keith’s skin pebbles with goosebumps in the wake of his touch. “What _happened?_ ” he asks, horrified. He’s being a hypocrite. It doesn’t stop the bone-deep fear that takes root at the sight. Only a mortal wound could create the need for such a replacement; by all rights, Keith shouldn’t be here now.

Keith shrugs diffidently and turns around. “There was an accident,” he says, matter of fact. “On Thorin. Some rebel terrorists planted bombs in several key buildings throughout the capital. The Blades evacuated them and tried to disarm the bombs, but we missed one.” His face crumbles, the first sign that his story is more than just a story. “It was a school. I went in to rescue any survivors and the building collapsed. I was one of the lucky ones. It crushed my spine, but they got me to the hospital and kept me alive long enough for the Olkari to fix me right up.”

Anger and betrayal wells up, unbidden. “Why didn’t you _tell_ me?” he asks in a tight voice, stomach clenching. Keith takes a step back, brow furrowed. It quickly turns into a scowl as he crosses his arms.

“How exactly should I have done that?” he snaps. “You weren’t _there_. You were _never_ there.”

The accusation in Keith's voice stings, and he doesn’t know why. His eyes well up and he doesn’t know why. He feels like the shittiest person in the world _and he doesn’t know why_. He stumbles to his feet, fighting not to choke on petals and branches and remorse. “I’m sorry, I—” he can’t finish the sentence. He turns and flees, unheeding as rocks and brambles scrape his bare feet. He thinks Keith calls his name, but he can’t be sure over the roaring in his ears. When he gets far enough away, he collapses at the base of a tree and focuses on squeezing oxygen into the few nooks and crannies left in his lungs. 

Keith doesn’t follow.

***

Keith has taken his place at the edge of the pond, sitting with knees drawn close to his chest as he stares out at the water with a frown. He’s fully dressed, jacket and all, despite the humid heat of the afternoon. When he looks up at the sound of soft footfalls, his eyes are red-rimmed, face drawn. Keith scrambles to his feet as he approaches.

“I’m sorry,” they say at the same time. 

He laughs awkwardly, rubbing at the back of his head. “I’m sorry,” he says again. “I had no right to get angry. You’re right, I wasn’t even there.”

For a second, Keith’s jaw clenches in frustration. He scrubs his hands through his hair and then over his face; when he looks up, he just looks resigned. “Yeah,” he says soft and sorrowful. “But that’s not your fault. None of this is.” Keith sniffs. “Maybe we should just go back.”

He studies Keith’s defeated slump and makes a decision. He pulls his shirt over his head and quickly sheds his pants as well, leaving only his underwear. Everything in him is screaming to run, to hide away, but he forces himself to walk at an unhurried pace into the water. When the water hits his waist, he turns to look at Keith. “You coming in or what?”

Keith blinks in surprise, then smirks and starts to pull off his clothes. 

He spreads his arms and flops backward into the water, letting himself sink under the surface as he waits for Keith to join him. The pounding of the waterfall is loud down here. It blocks everything out. 

He resurfaces, spluttering, at the touch of Keith’s hand on his calf. He pushes his hair back and wipes his eyes. “You’re right, it does feel good.” 

Keith laughs and dunks his head under as well. He slicks back his own bangs, leaving his face beautifully, painfully bare to the world. “Yeah, it does.”

***

One week turns into two, turns into a month. His dreams grow worse even as his days grow better with Keith's presence. For the first time, he doesn't spend every moment of every day either thinking about what lies ahead of him or desperately trying _not_ to think about it. They go back to the waterfall often, but spend the majority of their time in the desert. He shows Keith the bluffs, the canyon. He's never been able to figure out whether it was already there or if the Caretakers had created it. They debate the possibilities as they follow the slim river that flows along the bottom. He manages to convince the Caretakers to allow them to take the extra hoverbike and finds himself in awe as Keith speeds over the wide expanses, taking hairpin turns and jackknifing off bluff surfaces with ease. Keith pushes him to speed up, to first follow in his wake and then by his side. His breath catches and is torn from him by the air buffeting his face, but he finds this sort of breathlessness exhilarating rather than suffocating.

He does not show Keith his burial plot.

They park their bikes at the top of a bluff and sit, watching as the twin suns slowly sink below the horizon. He's hit with a wave of déjà vu so potent he would have had to sit if they weren't already. Dizzy, he sets his hand against the ground to steady him. The sun-hot stone anchors him to the moment, as does Keith's hand on his shoulder.

"Kuro? Are you okay?" 

He takes a soft breath and closes his eyes for a moment. Greenish veins criss-cross the backs of his eyelids. The sight of them makes the nausea roiling through him worse. He chooses to focus his gaze on Keith instead, even though the worry in his eyes makes him feel guilty.

He forces a smile. "I'm okay," he reassures Keith, and finds that the words are true. He brings his hand up to pat Keith's gently and turns back to look at the panorama ahead of them. The suns are nearly gone, throwing the world into blues and purples and deep reds. He sighs and his smile takes on a slightly more sincere edge. "I'm okay."

***

Today, he takes Keith somewhere he’s been avoiding, not just since Keith had shown up, but since he himself had shown up in a blaze of engine fuel and broken ship and broken man. He slows as they come to the furrow he’d carved into this planet. There’s no growth here. It’s the oldest sector of the planet, and he’d taken out nearly half a mile of Unloved. Memorials and stories and flowers are torn and burned and gone forever because of him. He’s amazed the Caretakers have remained so gracious in the aftermath. Maybe they figure the guilt he feels is punishment enough. Or maybe they have lived so long and seen so much that they don’t fault the wreckage of a dying man.

Keith slides off the hoverbike slowly, eyes glued to the edges of the wounded garden. He stays on the bike, breath whistling through the brambles in his throat, as Keith approaches the mounded edges. Keith stands, back straight and hands limp at his sides, his vibrancy washed thin by the midday suns. He doesn’t know what Keith is thinking. If he’s shocked or fearful. Sorrowful or disgusted. Amazed that he had somehow survived, or maybe wondering how he could possibly justify clinging stubbornly to life when he’d desecrated so many others.

Or maybe he’s projecting his own maelstrom of emotions on Keith.

He forces himself to swing one leg off the hoverbike, then drag himself step by step to stand at Keith’s side. The skeletal remains of the ship still remain, burnt and half-planted in the soil; debris scattered like petals in its wake. It too, is a memorial of sorts. Perhaps he should plant himself here, but the idea fills him with a bone-deep horror that clogs his brain and squeezes his heart until it bleeds in his chest. It’s selfish, but he can’t let _this_ him end in the same place the old him did.

“You survived this?” Keith asks in a choked whisper.

“More or less intact, even.” 

It’s a feeble joke that falls flat when Keith sharply says, “ _Don’t._ Don’t you dare joke about this.” 

He turns away from the grave he’d dug to study Keith. He’s stunned to see tears cutting tracks through the patina of hoverbike kickup on his cheeks. He hesitates before reaching out to tentatively take Keith’s hand. Keith squeezes hard, then tangles their fingers together. “If you had died here, I…”

He takes a chance and tugs on their joined hands until Keith finally tears his eyes away from the wreckage. Keith throws his arms around his neck with a wounded sound, clinging tightly. He clings back even though it hurts, confused by the flood of Keith’s emotion and swept up in his own rising tide. He whispers comfort into Keith’s temple, nonsense words and sounds that he hardly understands himself, but which make Keith shudder and slump bonelessly against him.

Keith finally pulls back but leaves his arms wrapped around his neck, staring up at him with red eyes and tear-starred lashes. He lets go of Keith’s waist but only to smudge tear tracks into abstract art. “I’m alive,” he says firmly. “And lucky. I could have lost a lot more than my arm, but I didn’t. I’m here. I’m _here._ ” 

For a little while longer, at least. For the first time in a long while, he finds himself wishing he wasn’t wilting away here. He thinks he might enjoy the stars again, with Keith there to stand in wonder with him.

Keith sniffs hard and drops his hands to rubs snot off his face with one palm. “You didn’t lose your arm here,” he says absently, wiping his hand on his pants and looking back out over the rubble.

His breath catches in his throat, and it has nothing to do with the garden inside him. “What?” he rasps. Keith spins back to him, eyes wide with panic. It slowly melts into determination.

“You didn’t lose it in the wreck. Or, maybe you lost the prosthetic, but not the arm.”

He shakes his head, heart stuttering and returning at hummingbird speeds. His sight tunnels and anything Keith might be saying is drowned out by the ringing in his ears.

_(You already took my arm, what more do you want!?)_

The bubble in his brain pops. He’s on the ground, static in his eyes while Keith’s voice comes through a tin can. 

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Shiro, please—”

“Don’t call me that,” he cuts Keith off with a gasp. “I’m not… I’m not him. You don’t love me. You can’t.”

Keith recoils. He’s full of gritted teeth and frustration. “Why are you so sure of that?” he bites out. 

He traces Keith’s face with his eyes—the scar slashed violently into his skin, the bitter curl of his mouth and angry light behind his eyes. He’s beautiful. It hurts to look at him. He closes his eyes instead. “Because if you did, I wouldn’t be dying,” he whispers, even though it’s cruel and wrong and makes no sense because Keith isn’t his Unrequited and he is not Keith’s Beloved.

The silence between them is thick as grave dirt. 

“Fuck you, _Kuro._ ” Keith spits the name out like a curse. “Just. Fuck you.” Keith stomps toward his hoverbike.

He stares out at the ruins he has wrought. His hacking cough is drowned out by the kickstart of the engine as Keith peels out of there. He has to reach halfway down his throat to grab the slimy, slobbery end of the vine snaking its way up from his stomach. He pulls it, hand over hand, out of him. Its chainsaw edges rip the guilt and sorrow from him in a bloom of agony and blood.

He watches the sun set, but it feels hollow. Pointless. Lonely.

***

Keith is curled like a pill bug on his bed, brow troubled even in sleep. He kneels beside the bed and brushes a finger, feather light, over deep purple under swollen eyes. Keith’s lips are anxiety abused; there’s a raw, red stripe where he’d bitten dry skin and ripped off too much. He wants to press his mouth against it and kiss away the metallic bitterness of his stress.

He stands instead, takes a swig of too-sweet nectar, fighting back a gag as it coats his tongue and throat and leaves numbness in its wake. He climbs carefully on the bed and settles a few inches behind Keith, body heavy with nectar and exhaustion. The tension in Keith’s body melts away, spreading across the divide between them until he’s cuddled close, a cool balm to the fever inside.

***

They don’t talk about it in the morning, but Keith sleeps with him more often than not, now.

His presence quells Keith’s nightmares. Keith’s presence makes his worse. It’s a secret he keeps close to his chest, tangled in the brambles along with all the rest.

At night, he curls carefully around Keith, their bodies a perfect quotation mark at the end of a silent conversation.

***

“Are you sure your Takashi is here?” he finds himself asking. “It seems to me like he was loved very much.” _By you_ , he doesn’t need to add. Keith sighs and touches a finger to the tip of one of the lush succulents that surround them, feather-light over the soft, velvet fuzz.

“He was,” Keith says, the words weighed down with exhaustion and sorrow. “He is. But I don’t think he realizes it. Sometimes I wonder how he couldn’t possibly know. I thought he did. I never tried to hide it.” 

He speaks as if Takashi were still alive; as if his bones and flesh and blood and guts aren’t feeding the same plants that tore him apart. As if the burden of unrequited love didn’t break him down so his flowers might flourish. But Takashi _shouldn’t_ be here; Keith’s love shines through every word, every movement, bright and warm like the sun on their faces. It should have lit up the dark parts of Takashi’s soul and scorched away the roots before they could take hold. And yet, the flowers somehow still found fertile soil in his heart.

“Maybe he didn’t believe,” he says slowly. “Maybe he couldn’t.” He looks out over endless miles of flowers and wonders how many of them wouldn’t be here if only they’d loved themselves enough to believe that others might as well.

Keith slumps against him, pressing his forehead into his shoulder. “I don’t know how to fix that,” he says quietly, voice rough and wavering with unshed tears. “How do I fix this?”

He lets his cheek rest against the crown of Keith’s head, breathing in the citrusy, herbal scent of borrowed shampoo. “I don’t think you can,” he whispers, pressing his lips to Keith’s scalp in gentle comfort. For once, Keith is warm against him. “I think, maybe, he has to be the one to do that.” He pulls Keith tight to his chest as he shudders and muffles sobs against his throat.

He wonders when, exactly, he’d started to think of Takashi in present tense.

***

His brain is a bingo machine, spitting out one small detail at a time from a flying mess of memories. They're random and never really make sense on their own, but he’s gathered enough that soon he'll be able to put them together and make something of them. He's just not sure he wants to.

***

_He stares at the incoming transmission blankly. The words scramble and swirl in his eyes, which is how he knows he’s dreaming. He has to be dreaming; it’s one he’s awakened from too many times to count, choking on sobs he can’t let out for fear of waking the man in the bed next to him._

_He can’t choke it back now, even with the hand clapped over his mouth._

_“Takashi?” A tentative hand settles on his shoulder, uncertain of its welcome. He leans into it, looking for any comfort he can find, even if it isn’t from whom he really wants. The grip firms. “What’s wrong?”_

_He shudders out a breath. “Keith. He. There was an accident.”_

_The hand retreats too fast. “Oh. I’m so sorry. Is he going to be okay?”_

_The sentiment is sincere and that almost makes it worse. He turns to face his husband, who is watching him with tired, resigned eyes. “I. I don’t know. It’s bad. It’s.” He swallows down a scream. “It’s really bad, and I…”_ Should have stopped him. Should have been there. Should have saved him. _“I should have_ saved _him.”_

_“Oh, Takashi.”_

_He recoils from the pity, the tired surrender to the inevitable. “Curtis, I need to go.”_

_Curtis’s lips thin. He closes his eyes. Closes off his face. Closes off himself. “I know.”_

_“I’m sorry,” he tries._

_“Are you? Or are you just guilty.”_

_Both. “I’m sorry,” he says again._

_Curtis sighs and scrubs his hands through his hair. “I know you are,” he grits out, frustrated. Then, more quietly, “I know. I love you.”_

_“I lo—”_

_“Don’t. Please.”_

_He bites his lip, guilt twisting anxiously in his stomach and burning like acid as it crawls up his throat. “I do,” he whispers. “I do.”_

_“Not like him.”_

_He wants to deny it. He can’t. “I’m sorry.”_

_They feel like the only words he says lately._

_“I’ve seen the petals in the trash can.” He recoils, caves in on himself. The acknowledgement is crushing. “You know what that means, right?” He nods. “He doesn’t love you.”_

_“I know. I’m sorry,” he tries again. He always tries. Succeeding is another matter entirely. Something rises in his throat, cuts off his air. He turns away to cough, but he can’t hide the leaf that escapes the cradle of his hand to fall to the ground. He stares, wordless, as his husband kneels in front of him to pick it up. He offers it up like he had once held up a ring. Two tokens of love. He takes it numbly._

_Curtis sighs, rubbing specks of blood off his fingers as he stands. “No, I am. That was cruel.” He looks impossibly sad, even as he smiles. Even as he cradles his cheek with one hand. Even as he says, “It’s okay. I think I knew. I think I always knew.” Curtis drops his hand and steps away. “Go pack. I’ll requisition a Viper from Iverson. It won’t be a problem, if it’s for you.” Curtis turns away, already preoccupied with his phone._

_He hovers for a moment before turning towards their… the bedroom. A sense of urgency overtakes him as he throws things haphazardly into a duffel bag. Curtis reappears in the doorway just as he throws the last of his belongings into the bag and zips it up. “It’ll be waiting for you on tarmac five,” he says, voice flat and calm. Too calm. He swallows down the apology unfurling in his mouth. It won’t be welcome here._

_“I did love you,” he says instead, clutching the bag to his chest like a shield. As if his heart is the one taking the battering right now._

_Curtis closes his eyes. It’s his_ praying for patience _face. When he opens them again, he smiles, small but real. “I know.” Curtis wraps him up in a hug. He takes comfort even though he knows he doesn’t deserve it. Doesn’t deserve to be loved at all. “I loved you too. You’re a good man, Shiro. I hope you get what you want.”_

_“I hope you do too.”_

_Curtis pulls back, holds him at arm’s length. “I’ll email you the papers as soon as I get them drawn up.”_

***

He wakes on a gasp and a name, leans over the edge of the bed and throws up petals and leaves and seeds. Keith rubs soothing circles into his back with one hand while steadying him with the other. “Kuro?” he asks, alarm overtaking the sleepiness in his voice.

“No!” 

The word leaves his mouth like a gunshot and rips a hole through his carefully constructed amnesia. “That’s not. I’m not…” He swallows down bile and saliva and the bitter taste of greenery. 

“Sh… Shiro?” Keith tries again. The hesitant, fearful hope in the other man’s voice has him spewing another stream of bloody flowers and sick onto the floor. “Shit. Shiro, please.”

Please. Just that, a simple supplication for something they both need but can’t name. Something he doesn’t know if he can give. He shakes his head dizzily as he rolls out of bed, heedless of the slimy puddle of rot he steps in. “I can’t. I.” He scrabbles and slips, crashing to his knees. The jolt hurts and shakes him to the core, but it’s nothing compared to the riotous wilderness of pain and panic inside him.

He can’t be here. 

He crawls over to the door and pulls himself up with the knob. “Don’t,” he says harshly when Keith tries to help. He can’t allow himself to think about the way Keith jerks back as if burned. He babbles apologies even as he runs from Keith like the hounds of hell have come for what’s left of his soul.

***

He ends up at his gravesite, curled in a ball among the yucca and saguaro and succulents. He shivers in the cold air; the desert is harsh and unwelcoming at night. It feels like everything he deserves. He doesn’t move, even when he hears the soft thrum of hoverbike thrusters. The headlights slice the landscape in half. He closes his eyes, focusing instead on the dirt and gravel turning to mud under his cheek, the burr seeds digging into his skin through his thin night clothes. Keith settles quietly by his head, wrapped up tight in himself and careful not to touch as he stares out over the landscape.

“How did you find me?” Shiro finally asks Keith, voice dull and empty as he feels. 

Keith shifts next to him. “I always find you,” he says with dark humor. “This is also the only area of the desert you were careful to avoid, even though it’s the part that looks most like home.”

It does. The horizon rises in the distance like a fondly remembered dream, and the red clay dirt that sticks to his wet cheeks has a familiar, silty slide as he digs his fingers into the earth. He laughs, broken and wet. Even when he runs away he somehow still ends up seeking home. Seeking Keith. “Yeah, I guess it does.”

“This is where you were going to Plant yourself, isn’t it?” His silence is answer enough. Keith huffs out a frustrated, incredulous breath. “And you’re laying… Jesus, Takashi. Your flare for the morbid is still intact, I see.” Resigned humor curls through his voice. 

Shiro sighs and rolls onto his back so he can stare up at the cold, desolate stars. “I was coming for you,” he says on barely a breath of a whisper. “You were always there for me. Always. But I wasn’t there when you…” he chokes back a dry sob. “I just needed to be there, but I fucked up. Again.”

Keith wraps a hand in Shiro’s hair and yanks so he can’t do anything other than stare up into Keith’s furious face. “Shut up. Just… shut up! Stop taking on guilt for things that aren’t your fault.”

“I kept flying even after I started coughing,” he tries to argue. “I hit… something. I don’t even know what. I should have turned on autopilot. I should have been more careful.” At the time, focusing on piloting seemed better than the endless cycle of imagined conversations, agonizing over the exact right words.

“Yeah, and I shouldn’t have gone running into a building I knew was going to collapse. Everyone fucks up, Shiro.”

“Does everyone marry someone else instead of facing their feelings for their best friend? Or cough up flowers in the honeymoon suite and still somehow convince themselves they’d made the right decision?”

Keith stays quiet for a long time, but his hand gentles in Shiro’s hair. He cards through the tangles as he says, “No, some of us run across the universe and get themselves crushed rather than face the fact that the person they love is happy and in love with someone else.”

“But you never coughed up flowers,” Shiro says blankly, even though he knows it’s stupid, that it would have been easy enough to hide for the three or four days a year they saw each other. He had. He’d hidden it from his own husband for nearly a year. Or, at least, he thought he had.

Keith stares out over the desert. The first sun is just starting to crest; the second will chase after it soon enough, throwing Keith and him under their unforgiving light. Shiro bites his lip. Dread curls through him. “Did… did you...?”

Keith’s lips press together until they blanch. “No. I didn’t get them ripped out,” he says tightly. “Galra are immune. I had a fifty-fifty chance.” He looks down and smiles sadly. “Guess I lucked out.”

Shiro’s breath stutters as he’s hit with another memory.

_(The kiss is a question. A love note, do-you-like-me-check-yes-or-no. And God, how he wants to check yes, but…_

_He pushes Keith away gently. “I’m so sorry,” he half gasps, crushed under the weight of guilt. Keith deserves so much more than a workaholic with PTSD and the communication skills of an ostrich._

_Keith shuts down. “Okay,” he says, hollow-voiced and hollowed eyes. Shiro has carved him out, emptied him in one fell swoop. “Good night, then.” He walks away. Shiro doesn’t follow.)_

Shiro grinds his fist between his eyes, right where the pressure of his idiocy burns and spreads in sharp lances to his temples and the base of his skull. He wonders if the flowers and vines are finally sinking their roots into his brain. Maybe this is all a fever dream, his mind’s last wishes playing out through the flickers of dying neurons.

Keith gently pries his fist away and replaces it with his own cool fingers. “Tell me what’s going on in here, Shiro. Please.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I thought I was doing the right thing, even if it hurt you in the short run. Or me in the long run.”

“That’s because you’re an idiot.” Shiro gives him a half-hearted glare, but it’s hard to maintain when the light catches the sharp planes of cheekbones and jaw, the upward tilt of Keith’s lips. “But so am I,” Keith continues, “so I guess we match.”

Keith’s smile drops, replaced with fierce determination. He takes Shiro’s face between his hands so he can’t look away. “I love you, Takashi Shirogane. More than the universe, more than myself. I will always find you, and I will always save you. Even from yourself.”

If Shiro were a better, or even more well-adjusted man, he would be concerned by the sheer depth of Keith’s love. Their codependency and obsession with each other would feed a therapist for years. Instead, all he feels is a cool flood of relief, gratitude even, as his own love rises to meet Keith’s. He finally stops fighting the rip current.

His own confession is not as eloquent but finds strength in simplicity. “I love you too, Keith Kogane. With all my heart.”

Keith’s smile shines brighter than the rising sun. He leans down to fit his lips to Shiro’s; Shiro drinks it down like ice cold water in the desert. It settles in his stomach, quenching the perpetual fever for bare moments before igniting, sudden and bright as a road flare. It spreads like wildfire through him, tracing along his veins and burning through the flowers and vines like holy fire. It burns him pure and new.

He breaks away as it coalesces in his stomach, setting his esophagus alight. He wrenches to the side and retches violently. The blackened, rotted remains splatter over the red desert dirt. Some part of him will remain here after all, he thinks wildly, trying to breathe through the thick, viscous fluid pouring from his lungs and belly. It’s too late, he realizes with dull certainty. His cure is going to kill him.

He wishes he had the breath to tell Keith that he’s sorry. That he loves him, one more time. He mouths it instead and prays that Keith somehow sees and understands.

With one last body-wracking heave, he empties himself out onto the earth and lets the blackness take him.

***

Shiro blinks awake what feels like a lifetime later, woozy and lightheaded. His chest is on fire. His veins have been torn asunder and then cauterized to keep him alive. Keith hovers above him, haloed in soft light like an angel, if Shiro still believed in those. His mouth is crusted with black ichor, his cheeks with tears. Shiro tries to lift his hand to rub them away but it just flops weakly back to the ground. 

“Keith,” he murmurs. His voice and throat are in tatters. He doubts he will ever speak again in the warm timbre he remembers, but that part of him was already long gone and it’s a small price to pay anyway. He’s here. He’s _alive._ He’s…

Making Keith cry. Guilt hits him hard even as Keith stubbornly wipes away the evidence. He leaves a smear of black behind where the tears dampened the ichor. Shiro opens his mouth but Keith claps a hand over it. “Don’t talk, you idiot. You’re not even halfway through the healing process.” Shiro nods his understanding and the hand over his mouth smooths over his cheek instead. “I had to do CPR until the Caretakers got there. They weren’t even sure if you’d live. They’ve never seen someone recover after being so far gone.” Keith sucks in a shaky breath. “Your heart stopped. The plants had cannibalized so much there was barely enough left to regenerate. And your lungs. There was so much scarring…” So that’s why he feels like he’d taken a blaster to the chest.

Keith’s eyes are wet and shiny again, one blink away from spilling over. Shiro gathers all his strength and manages to tangle his fingers with Keith’s against his cheek. “Won’t leave you again,” he grates out. 

Keith scowls at him for disobeying orders but doesn’t admonish him. “I know, that’s what I told the Caretakers. Told them it doesn’t matter because I’d just drag you back anyway.”

Shiro huffs out an involuntary laugh. He immediately regrets it. Keith shushes him and pets soothingly over his chest until the spasms subside, leaving behind a bone deep exhaustion. 

Keith looks just as rough, the dark hollows under his eyes so deep he is more wraith than man. Shiro uses the hand still clasped in Keith’s to tug him weakly downward. _Sleep_ , he mouths. 

“I should clean up,” Keith says half-heartedly. “And check in with the Caretakers, let them know you’re awake.” Shiro tugs again and this time Keith hardly hesitates before curling up at his side. He gingerly lays his head against Shiro’s chest, ear pressed over his heart as if to monitor the way it stutters and slowly strengthens. His body is still shaky and unsteady, topsoil weakened by the absence of the root system growing through him for so long. Their relationship is still fragile as well, new growth in need of nurturing after being allowed to wither for so long. It will take time to grow it healthy again. That’s okay. They have plenty.

Keith’s breathing slows and deepens, lulling Shiro with its steady rhythm. Shiro follows him under, secure in the knowledge that he loves Keith and Keith loves him.

He will never forget again.

**Author's Note:**

> Francowitch's Twitter account can be found [here](https://twitter.com/francowitch), and her own wonderful stories [here.](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Francowitch)
> 
> My Twitter: [kenda1l1](https://twitter.com/kenda1l1)  
> This story is part of the [LLF Comment Project](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/llfcommentproject), which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates feedback, including:
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